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Longmont's TinkerMill gives hackerspace a good name

By Pam Mellskog Longmont Times-Call

Posted:
11/16/2013 09:05:39 PM MST

Updated:
11/16/2013 09:08:22 PM MST

Joe Augustaitus, right, and Jeff Cragg, of Longmont, work to troubleshoot an error with a motion sensor on an Arduino Duemilanove micro controller at TinkerMill on Tuesday at Twin Peaks Mall.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

An arc from a Jacobs Ladder is seen at TinkerMill on Tuesday at Twin Peaks Mall.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

LONGMONT -- When Lindsay Levkoff and Scott Converse bumped into each other online in April, they soon met for coffee to build something big for Longmont -- its first hackerspace.

But because many outside the hacker community envision a criminal meddling with computer code at great cost to the public, they wanted to launch with a more descriptive name.

Levkoff came up with TinkerMill to tag the community that gathers at a workshop/tool shop next door to Longmont's Twin Peaks Mall movie theater to pursue projects that tap creativity in technology and engineering (think drone building), the arts (think filmmaking) and entertainment (think video game testing).

"When you look back at the history of hacking, it is not an evil enterprise," she said, noting that the movement began in the 1970s. "It's just people taking things apart to see how they function, and then putting things back together and possibly repurposing that thing into a better product."

"... For a lot people, our uber-efficient culture doesn't encourage slowing down to do something you're not good at yet," said Levkoff, the education director at Gunbarrel-based SparkFun, an online electronics retailer. "This is what used to be done through shop class and hobbies."

The TinkerMill co-founders -- she as vice president and Converse as president of the five-member board -- now count 42 paying members and 139 folks affiliated with the organization's online Meetup Group.

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The membership includes hacker hobbyists who by day created animatronics for the Pirates of the Caribbean feature at Walt Disney World and Disneyland; illustrations for Marvel Comics; and robotics designs for NASA, Converse said.

Others show up clueless, but curious.

"I don't have too much technical knowledge, and I didn't really know what a hackerspace was," Andrea Delk, 23, of Longmont, said.

She works at a cutting table for a local printer and first visited as a guest of her sister, who is a TinkerMill member.

Delk is a regular now, though, because TinkerMill gave her license to play.

"You think you hit a certain age, and you're not allowed to try something anymore. Here, you experiment, and give it a go," she said. "This hackerspace allows me to dream bigger dreams."

That explains why the St. Vrain Valley School District this fall began debuting hackerspaces built into schools, such as Spark! Discovery Preschool in Frederick, according to Bud Hunt, the district's instructional technology coordinator. (Checkout makehackplay.org.)

"The ethos of hacking is that playing is important," he said. "If there is a mantra in the movement, it is, 'Yes, you can.'"

Hackers helping hackers

Joe Augustaitus of Longmont adjusts an oscilloscope while working to trouble shoot an error in a motion sensor on an Arduino Duemilanove micro controller at TinkerMill on Tuesday at Twin Peaks Mall.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Converse, a local entrepreneur, is aware of how the school district views hacking as value-added play and looks forward to partnering by offering youth memberships to budding hackers, ages 13 to 18.

"But as long as a parent is there, too, you can have a 5-year-old kid soldering in here," he said, urging members to commit to mentoring.

Vishal Verma, a 26-year old software engineer who works in Longmont and lives in Boulder, joined because building something is different than reading about building something.

"It's a whole different level of becoming familiar with whatever you're doing," he said.

About two dozen people -- a few of them women -- gathered Tuesday at the TinkerMill for updates on the hackerspace's future.

With the mall space facing a wrecking ball, the group began discussing the old flourmill near First Avenue and Main Street in Longmont.

With its 33 foot-high ceilings and cement floors, it champions TinkerMill's open platform feel, Converse said.

Though the move could be up to a year away or as early as this spring, he floated it as a possible permanent location for a hackerspace that could double as a business innovation space.

TinkerMill already rents desk space to members building a business for $100 a month, he said.

"Did you know that you can be a bootlegger in Longmont? It's legal here. So we should be teaching people how to build a distillery in their basement," he said.

"... And when you get old school HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) guys and computer designers and programmers together and smash them up, amazing new products and businesses pop up. If you're interested in starting a company, look around."

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